One of Germany’s oldest preserved buildings, the Granusturm tower built in 788 AD as part of the palace of Frankish Emperor Charlemagne or Charles the Great, now abuts the modern gabled city registry office in Krämerstrasse at Aachen, North-Rhine Westphalia. The tower, probably named after Grannus, Celtic god of healing and light, once had windows covered with scraped animal hide.
Aachen, North-Rhine Westphalia, Germany: ancient meets modern - perhaps incongruously - as the brickwork, plain glass windows and low rise gables of the Standesamt Aachen, the city’s registry office, butts up against one of Germany’s oldest preserved buildings, the Granusturm or Granus Tower. The monolithic tower in Krämerstrasse, probably named after Grannus, Celtic god of healing and light, was built in 788 AD as part of the imperial palace of Frankish Emperor Charlemagne or Charles the Great (747-814 AD). Aachen’s Gothic Rathaus or city hall, on the other side of the tower, stands on the site of Charlemagne’s Aula regia or King’s Hall. The Granusturm, 20m (66 ft) high, has been partly rebuilt, extended and repaired over time, but the original structure is still essentially intact. However, although it was used as a staircase to other parts of the palace, as a watch tower and as a civic archive, its original function is unknown. The Granusturm has three floors, each with a vaulted room. Some doubt a theory that it served as a temporary home for Charlemagne’s family because the building was unheated, there were no sanitary facilities on upper floors and the interior was dark and cold, its windows covered only by scraped and greased animal skins held in iron window frames. The tower was extended upwards in the 1300s after the city took over the part-ruined palace and built the Rathaus. In the 1500s, it became a civic archive, its massive stone walls enough to protect official documents during a city fire in 1656. The Rathaus was badly damaged by Allied bombing during World War II. In 1943, the steel framework supporting the corner turrets of the Granusturm was deformed by intense heat. The tower was restored after the war, with anchor rods inserted beneath it to prevent it leaning any further to the south-east.
Size: 2832px × 4256px
Location: Aachen, North-Rhine Westphalia, Germany.
Photo credit: © Terence Kerr / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
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